


A Safe Place

by Wolkemesser



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Innistrad, Other, Rats, Vampires, graveyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolkemesser/pseuds/Wolkemesser
Summary: Harve has spent longer trapped underground than any living thing could possibly last. The one silver lining to his situation? Being alive was never a concern.A quick story I wrote that takes place during the events of Eldritch Moon.
Kudos: 5





	A Safe Place

833 notches, now 834.

834 days.

Harve triple-counted, then counted another three times, every day. At least he tried. Down here there was no way to tell the passage of the day.

Or 834 days.

Harve finished carving the newest notch, and let out a long, piercing shriek. Palms spasmed, and nails of skin, crusting over with dried blood, dragged along the wood.

It wasn’t fair.

He’d served the Markovs for years. Fed them his own brother to show his loyalty. Taken every insult, blow, and humiliation until he’d been deemed worthy and made one of them. For four glorious days he’d lived their life of decadence and freedom. Just four days. Then those damned cathars had ambushed him. Hadn’t even had the decency to just stake him. No, these bastards were cruel. Thought it would be ‘just’ to stick Harve in an open grave and leave him to rot.

He’d gotten the life he’d always dreamed of. No rules. Power. Respect.

Now he stayed sane by counting the days and screaming.

It wasn’t _fair!_

Harve howled. He could scream for hours these days. He had nothing to do down here but practice, and his now-immortal lungs hadn’t given out yet. Fingernails dug between the splinters. The pain was the last thing he had to remind himself he had a body. That he wasn’t just a consciousness in the dark.

Something fell into his eyes and open mouth. Harve cursed, spat, and wiped grit from his face. Edgar’s fangs, what indignity was this now? First tortured, then buried, and now sprinkled with dirt??

Harve stopped cursing.

Dirt.

Hands scrabbled at the coffin lid. Fingernails probed the wood, pushing and scratching.

More dirt.

Harve laughed, and fate rewarded him with another mouthful of dirt.

It tasted delicious.

He pulled his hands back and thrust up at the lid with his fists. The heavy wood, weakened by worms and months of scratching, split with a muffled _crack_.

More dirt filled his nose and mouth. No matter. He hadn’t needed air in over a year. What was a few more frantic minutes? Harve pushed his hands through the crack and clutched at the dirt, lifting his body through the breach. He could barely raise his shoulders half a foot, but it was a start.

Harve took a deep breath. He didn’t need it, but the action helped to center him.

He started to climb.

His hands carved a slow, painful path through the soil. It was soft, but compacted over a year of settling. His jaw churned the dirt, gnawing through rocks, grit, and the foul worms of the earth. Every muscle strained to move upward. Every centimeter upward took a lifetime of pain. Half a dozen times he nearly stopped, the smothering dirt too much to bear.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, the earth above gave. Harve pushed his hand up, up, up…

…And his fingertips felt air.

Harve would have cried if his eyes hadn’t been stuffed with dirt. His fingers seized grass. His other hand came up, and with a strain that felt like it might tear his arms from his sockets, he pulled himself free of the earth.

For a while he simply lay there on the churned earth. It was a beautiful night. A new moon, the sky was full of stars. For a while he was content to lay there and look at something that wasn’t a wooden board.

But a vampire’s hunger, denied for over two years, could not be kept waiting long.

He stumbled to his feet, eyes darting around. The stitcher had left him in a cemetery. There must be a village nearby. Perhaps he could find some poor idiot wandering around outside and take them quietly…

“Come on now, this way!”

Or maybe the idiot humans would come to him. Maybe there was a power that looked out for vampires after all. Harve crouched behind a small shrub and peered in the direction of the voices.

Three graverobbers stalked among the tombstones. Two men and a woman. They looked wary, but distracted. Almost feverish. The woman was scratching at her neck, like she was breaking out in a rash. The men were dazed. Drunk, perhaps?

_Squeak_

Harve nearly jumped and blew his cover. Rats were skittering around the tombstones, heedless of the vampire in their midst. They were strange, sickly-looking things that made Harve’s skin crawl. A small clutch of them skirted past his feet, and perched up on the tombstones around the robbers.

Harve dared another look. If the graverobbers noticed the rats, they gave no sign. They were looking around in a stupor, as if trying to find a good spot to dig.

Then, all of a sudden, the rats leapt on them. One of the men let out a shout, but it was a dull sound, with no inflection or fear in it.

Harve stood transfixed. The rats looked rabid, ready to tear at the necks of the humans. Instead, they…they _melted_ into the exposed flesh of the graverobbers. They stood shock-still, shuddering and shivering in erratic spells.

Then they fell, slumping against each other like drunks against a tavern wall. One of the men’s heads rolled back and exposed his neck. A pang of hunger ran from Harve’s lips to his belly, but he stayed hidden.

All at once, they started to shudder. Skin and clothing ran together like broth, and the robbers sank into each other.

Then, as one, they rose, the thing that stood shrieked like a thousand rats. Groaned like a mob of men. Pink tendrils squirmed from every surface, poking through flesh like awful, worm-pale zits. Under the cacophony, Harve could hear sounds like an alien moan.

“MMMratkul….are’rakul…we…we…”

Harve turned on his heels and stalked quickly but quietly away, making a determined path for his grave. Perhaps he wasn’t so hungry after all. Perhaps it could wait.

Perhaps under the soil was the safest place to be for a while.

_“A Safe Place” is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC._


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